
If
you’ve been living on Earth this year,
you’ve probably heard someone
mention self-driving cars. If you
were tuned in, you might have heard the
$70,000 price tag for just one of the early
lidar units used in Google’s driverless cars.
The devices are a bit outside the typical
price point for a family auto let alone a
hobbyist’s project.
Lidar is at once an acronym for Light
Detection and Ranging and a portmanteau
of “light radar.” Its name is fairly descriptive:
The unit bounces laser light off of objects,
and senses the return of that light to
measure the distance of said object. This is
key to object detection in a self-driving car.
But for ...